From the pageantry of Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show to the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola empire, American “pop” culture—and the contemporary films, television programs, and cultural objects that determine it—dominates the rest of the world through its hegemonic presence. Does that make everyone a hybridized American or do these elements find mediation within the other cultures that consume them? Fabricating the Absolute Fake applies elements of postmodern theory—Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreality and Umberto Eco’s “absolute fake”, among others—to this globally mediated American pop culture in order to examine both the phenomenon itself and its specific appropriation in the Netherlands, as evidenced by diverse cultural icons like the Elvis-inspired crooner Lee Towers, the Moroccan-Dutch white rapper Ali B, musical tributes to an assassinated politician, and the Dutch reality soap opera scene.

A fascinating exploration of how global cultures struggle to create their own “America” within a post–September 11 media culture, Fabricating the Absolute Fake reflects on what it might mean to truly take part in American popular culture.

“A brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable work of cultural critique. . . . Jaap Kooijman takes seemingly exhausted concepts like “Americanization” and turns them on their head.”—Anne McCarthy, New York University

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jaap Kooijman is senior lecturer in media and culture, as well as American studies, at the University of Amsterdam.

REVIEWSA brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable work of cultural critique, this book teaches us that interpreting the behemoth of American popular culture does not have to involve a polarized choice between naïve celebration and disgusted condemnation. Jaap Kooijman takes seemingly exhausted concepts like Americanization and turns them on their head with astute analyses of a wide range of European and U.S. media phenomena. Refusing simple binaries between the fake and the authentic, or between cultural imperialism and native resistance, he demonstrates just how flexible the signifiers of Americanness can be when they circulate globally, materializing in surprising forms across film, television, and other popular media. Fabricating the Absolute Fake is a thoughtful primer in taking the superficial seriously--not as an act of redemption, but as a way of understanding cultural politics today. As terrifyingly seductive versions of “America” increasingly define both a new global imaginary and localized terrains of everyday life, this book provides us with a clear-headed perspective on the cultural realms we inhabit today.

Anna McCarthy, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Cinema StudiesNew York University

This book will be an eye opener for its readers. Fabricating the Absolute Fake shows that pop culture is more than ephemeral entertainment. When looked at with Kooijman's cosmopolitan eye, it can be seen as a continuing ritual in celebration of national identities, America's identity for sure, but also, intriguingly, a Dutch or even European sense of self. American pop culture is promethean, it is what people make of it. There is much joy and exhilaration in these cross-cultural exchanges and borrowings. There is even greater joy in Kooijman's playful readings of pop culture's products.

Rob Kroes, professor of American studies, University of Amsterdam

Fabricating the Absolute Fake explores the idea of America and Americanness in US pop culture and in the way this is taken up in the world, not only as a feature of reception but also of non-US cultural production. It is an astonishingly assured and adroit negotiation of the fake authenticity and authentic fakery of pop culture, moving effortlessly between the precise detail of cultural artefacts and overarching theoretical reflections, constituting along the way a veritable primer in contemporary cultural theory. Most daring and persuasive is Kooijman’s ability to move between and connect the most delicious pop and the most searing political events (9/11, the murder of Pim Fortuyn), never evading the seriousness of entertainment nor the spectacle of politics, never reductive in his handling of them. A book that is a pleasure for what it conveys of its subject and for its intellectual rigour, managing to be at once subtle and straightforward, complex and lucid.

From the pageantry of Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show to the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola empire, American “pop” culture—and the contemporary films, television programs, and cultural objects that determine it—dominates the rest of the world through its hegemonic presence. Does that make everyone a hybridized American or do these elements find mediation within the other cultures that consume them? Fabricating the Absolute Fake applies elements of postmodern theory—Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreality and Umberto Eco’s “absolute fake”, among others—to this globally mediated American pop culture in order to examine both the phenomenon itself and its specific appropriation in the Netherlands, as evidenced by diverse cultural icons like the Elvis-inspired crooner Lee Towers, the Moroccan-Dutch white rapper Ali B, musical tributes to an assassinated politician, and the Dutch reality soap opera scene.

A fascinating exploration of how global cultures struggle to create their own “America” within a post–September 11 media culture, Fabricating the Absolute Fake reflects on what it might mean to truly take part in American popular culture.

“A brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable work of cultural critique. . . . Jaap Kooijman takes seemingly exhausted concepts like “Americanization” and turns them on their head.”—Anne McCarthy, New York University

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jaap Kooijman is senior lecturer in media and culture, as well as American studies, at the University of Amsterdam.

REVIEWSA brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable work of cultural critique, this book teaches us that interpreting the behemoth of American popular culture does not have to involve a polarized choice between naïve celebration and disgusted condemnation. Jaap Kooijman takes seemingly exhausted concepts like Americanization and turns them on their head with astute analyses of a wide range of European and U.S. media phenomena. Refusing simple binaries between the fake and the authentic, or between cultural imperialism and native resistance, he demonstrates just how flexible the signifiers of Americanness can be when they circulate globally, materializing in surprising forms across film, television, and other popular media. Fabricating the Absolute Fake is a thoughtful primer in taking the superficial seriously--not as an act of redemption, but as a way of understanding cultural politics today. As terrifyingly seductive versions of “America” increasingly define both a new global imaginary and localized terrains of everyday life, this book provides us with a clear-headed perspective on the cultural realms we inhabit today.

Anna McCarthy, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Cinema StudiesNew York University

This book will be an eye opener for its readers. Fabricating the Absolute Fake shows that pop culture is more than ephemeral entertainment. When looked at with Kooijman's cosmopolitan eye, it can be seen as a continuing ritual in celebration of national identities, America's identity for sure, but also, intriguingly, a Dutch or even European sense of self. American pop culture is promethean, it is what people make of it. There is much joy and exhilaration in these cross-cultural exchanges and borrowings. There is even greater joy in Kooijman's playful readings of pop culture's products.

Rob Kroes, professor of American studies, University of Amsterdam

Fabricating the Absolute Fake explores the idea of America and Americanness in US pop culture and in the way this is taken up in the world, not only as a feature of reception but also of non-US cultural production. It is an astonishingly assured and adroit negotiation of the fake authenticity and authentic fakery of pop culture, moving effortlessly between the precise detail of cultural artefacts and overarching theoretical reflections, constituting along the way a veritable primer in contemporary cultural theory. Most daring and persuasive is Kooijman’s ability to move between and connect the most delicious pop and the most searing political events (9/11, the murder of Pim Fortuyn), never evading the seriousness of entertainment nor the spectacle of politics, never reductive in his handling of them. A book that is a pleasure for what it conveys of its subject and for its intellectual rigour, managing to be at once subtle and straightforward, complex and lucid.